PARIS  While applauding Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's call for a new chapter in trans-Atlantic relations, French politicians and pundits cautioned yesterday against premature optimism.

Senior officials stressed that France remained committed to the concept of a "multipolar world with several centers of power" in which the United States would be treated as a partner and not the leader.

The influential liberal daily Le Monde commented that France "rejects the idea that American-type democracy should be imposed throughout the world."

The conservative daily Le Figaro used Miss Rice's keynote address in Paris on Tuesday as an opportunity to point out that major differences on key issues such as Iran remained between Washington and Europe and that the concept of a "new departure" in trans-Atlantic relations will need more tangible effort.

Jacques Andreani, a former French ambassador to Washington, praised Miss Rice's delivery and conduct, but concluded that "in substance, there was nothing new at all" in her speech.

Miss Rice spoke to a star-studded audience at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris. The importance of her call for a new "crusade for freedom" was bolstered by the announcement of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, regarded as a major breakthrough in the Middle Eastern tug of war.

French officials pointed out that Europeans are just as eager for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict as the Americans and suggested that the best way to deal with the problem was by strict trans-Atlantic cooperation.

Echoing this view, Le Figaro wrote that such cooperation would be enhanced by the fact that "Europe has solid assets, including its influence in a number of Arab countries."

"The United States appears to think that freedom solves everything, but it is not so easy," said former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, one of the authors of the European Constitution.

European diplomats attached considerable importance to the decision that President Bush's first foreign visit in the second term is going to be to Europe later this month. Some said recent statements by members of the Bush administration indicate that Washington "is prepared to live with the European Union rather than snipe at it."

Officials in the EU headquarters in Brussels described Miss Rice's Paris speech as "an unquestionable willingness to bury past quarrels but also a desire [by Washington] to remain the self-appointed leader of democratic nations."

To Michel Chifres, a conservative commentator, the latest developments show that "it is time to finish with provocative phrases, add water to everyone's wine because continuation of the crisis served no one."

An opinion poll by the German Marshall Fund showed there were fewer divergences between American and European views on foreign affairs, but that in France, 65 percent of the people opposed the concept of U.S. leadership in world affairs.

"The United States appears to think that freedom solves everything, but it is not so easy"

Ribbit! Ribbit!

Maybe if the French had concentrated as much energy into spreading democracy as they did into expanding their failed empire and crafting delicious pastries they wouldn't be such a pissant little nation who no one likes, longing for the glory days of Napoleon.

NATO has been described for years now as an alliance without a mission. Thrown together as the Cold War got off the ground, its main mission was for years facing down the Red Army and preventing an expansion of Soviet influence. It wasn't but days after the fall of the Soviet Union before pundits across the globe began to ask what conceivable purpose the NATO alliance could serve with the retirement of its adversary.

All throughout the 90's and early 2000's this question arose again and again. The alliance seemed to find new life during the Balkan and Kosovo crises, but it wasn't long before most observers realized that "NATO involvement" was just a fancy way of saying the Yanks were coming. What possible use are armored divisions in western Germany? Do we really need to have the last drop of our sons' and daughters' blood pledged to protect Belgium? From who? Isn't NATO a relic whose time has gone, who deserves to be put to pasture with honor with all the other Cold War acronyms?

We must admit we had a certain fondness for such arguments during the presidency of Bill Clinton. As yet more death camps popped up within Europe's borders--amazingly such things never seem to happen in Iowa or Georgia despite our obvious intellectual inferiority--NATO began to seem to us more as a way for European governments to shunt their responsibility over to Americans. It infuriated us to no end how useless Dutch troops proved to be in the face of genocide and how, once again, it would be our guys (ironically, from Iowa and Georgia) who once again had to step in and demonstrate to our betters how not to kill one another.

Let Europe handle Europe's responsibilities. If it can, great. If not, well, that just goes to show you how wrongheaded this whole E.U. thing is. Either way, we thought, we come out a winner.

How wrong we were.

Sure, we had heard the arguments of those who said that the Atlantic Alliance was a vital tool, a way in which the U.S. can act, by proxy, as a European power in a European context. It's just that we didn't see any coming context in which we would need or want a European role.

How blind we were.

The Democrats aren't right about a lot of things, but they are right about one thing: we can't do everything we need to do alone. We need as many friends and allies as we can get in the current and coming struggle with Islamic Fascism. Sure, we need to reserve the right to act alone if circumstances merit it; we are in the final analysis keepers of both our own liberty and our own security. But the immense task that President Bush has laid before us--to transform wide swaths of the hitherto undemocratic world to functioning democracies--will require the same kind of unified effort that defeated National Socialist Germany, Imperial Japan and Communist Russia.

At today's NATO foreign minister's meeting in Brussels, Sec. Rice made it abundantly clear that the main goal of the United States' foreign policy in Europe will be to enlist as much aid as possible in this fight. Our current place at the table in NATO, with its history; its in-place, ready-to-use infrastructure and organization; its ability to bring together countries as far flung as Greece, Latvia, Spain, Turkey and the U.K. means that the United States is ready to put the Alliance to use without first having to re-invent it.

In her remarks today from Brussels http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/42047.htm , Sec. Rice made it clear that there is a growing consensus among Europe's political leaders that the U.S. and Europe must make common cause in this fight. Yes, some are playing lip service to the idea right now, not all are convinced--not by a long shot--that there even is an enemy let alone one to fight. However, little by little the pieces of a new grand coalition seem to be falling into place.

For this we have to thank the jihadis themselves. So dedicated are they to their pure, romantic vision, to their fanatical religion and to their commitment to fight and die on its behalf, that they are loath to conceal their aims. On the contrary, as we have discussed before, they remain remarkably open about what their goals are and what they are prepared to do to achieve those goals, be they hostage-killers in Iraq or clever academics in Switzerland.

Thus, despite the best efforts of the anti-American, anti-Western modern left, thirsting for revenge for our slaying of the Dream That Failed, more and more people are becoming aware of both the scope of the threat and its very real danger. From the murder of Theo VanGogh in the Netherlands to the rape of women who dare to wear skirts in France to the arrest of bearded men with explosives in Germany, the agenda of the jihadis in Europe is breaking through the MSM blackout to become a prominent worry in the contemporary European mind.

As this worry grows, like the worry over the Communist threat decades ago, America will begin to find a more receptive audience. And, just like that concern over the Communist threat, there will always be a large segment of the European population that simply does not get it, does not see it and will protest against every "American outlaw cowboy" measure that it can. But, as before, the silent majority of Europeans will come to support us. Expect to see parties like Germany's Christian Democrats begin to return to power in the years immediately ahead. Already, those governments who support us in Iraq have had incredible luck in getting re-elected (save for Spain, a special case) from Denmark to Australia. This cannot be a mere coincidence.

The Administration is taking the first steps towards re-enlisting the European powers, especially her newer members from the East who remember so clearly the vile power of tyranny, in this new battle. For, as the Boss said today:

It was, frankly, very gratifying to sit at this table with the members of this NATO alliance to remember its extraordinary past, which, of course, is a past that managed to, through common values and resoluteness, face down imperial communism on this continent and to see the emergence of a Europe whole, free and at peace with itself. It is an alliance that today talked about its common future and talked about how this alliance, as great as it has been in the past, will have an even better future because it will remain devoted to those values and it will remain devoted to the spread of liberty.

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